St. Patrick lived roughly 1,600 years ago and historians will tell you he wasn’t really Irish – he was probably Welsh. Legend has it that he was kidnapped as a teenager by pirates and taken to Ireland, where he was enslaved. He escaped and eventually became the patron saint of Ireland. (After becoming a Bishop, he went back to Ireland and ultimately died there.) He was never an engineer and there haven’t been snakes in Ireland since before the last ice age.

“I have nothing to do with it. You’ll have to ask Mary.” That was Sarah McCrae’s response in 1916 when a caller asked if her daughter would serve as the first Queen of Love and Beauty elected by the junior class at MSM. (Technically, the first queen, Helen Baysinger, the daughter of a Board of Curators member, was crowned in 1915, but had not been elected.)

On Lance Haynes’ first day as an assistant professor of speech and media studies back in 1984, his colleagues took him to lunch in the old University Center-East cafeteria. As they walked across campus, Haynes noticed students walking around in green jackets, which seemed unusual in such warm weather.

The cover image of the Winter 2007 issue is a Photomosaic (R) of the shamrock that adorns the jacket worn for decades by St. Pat’s Committee members. It features 1,150 unique images of St. Pat’s through the years. The Photomosaic was created by artist Robert Silvers. See more of Silvers’ work at www.photomosaic.com.

Even in war time, UMR alumni will find a way to celebrate the Best Ever. For an article that appeared in a 1991 issue of the magazine, MSM-UMR Alumnus staff interviewed Gene Boyt, ME’41, about his experiences meeting up with two MSM alumni as prisoners of war in the Philippines during World War II.